FedEx Air Shipping & Saturday Delivery

We serve a lot of customers who want their stuff within 24-48 hours, no matter where they are, and I've always wondered how 'Brand X' gets away with charging a customer for 2nd Day delivery, and then taking a week to ship the order out... hmmmm.... it's like hey, thanks for nothing, but I'm sure they are too busy to do better and I stopped trying to figure them out a long time ago...

... so anyway, as many of you already know, if you are a US customer and select FedEx air shipping on your RACS Anime order up until about 2-3pm (EST) we ship your order the same day for delivery the next business day or in two business days if you select 2nd day air. So if you place an overnight order early on Tuesday afternoon, you are going to get it Wednesday morning. There is no 'you might get it' or 'most orders arrive the next day' or 'ships next day but takes an additional 1-2 days for processing' kinda thing going on. Hey, we choose our warehouse location partly for it's proximity to the airport and the regional FedEx air depot (it's only 2 blocks away) - we're pretty serious about this stuff.

So with that in mind, there are a couple of features of how we handle 'FedEx Air' orders here that I thought you guys might like to know:

1) FedEx Air orders, no matter when they are placed, go right to the front of the line and get processed before any other class of orders.

2) FedEx Air orders get priority for inventory allocation. This is the only time that inventory is assigned to orders in a manner that could be considered 'less than fair'. Though it does not happen very often, let me give you an example: If we have 1 unit of a PVC Figure left in stock, and we get 2 orders for it over the weekend, on Monday we would assign it to the first order that was placed - except if the second order is an 'Air' order. In that case, the air customer would get first preference for the inventory, and we would backorder it for the other customer. Bet you didn't know that. :-)

Air customers pay extra for priority treatment, and that's what they get - plain and simple.

So great, we offer FedEx air express shipments, and we get them shipped right away. What's the catch? Well, one issue we run into is this: FedEx delivers on a business day schedule. If your order ships out on Friday, and you select 2nd day, it definately will NOT get delivered on Sunday. It gets delivered on Tuesday, which is 2 'business days' later. Same thing with overnight. A Friday Overnight shipment won't be delivered until Monday unless you specifically check the 'Saturday Delivery' box and authorize us to add the additional $18 fee that FedEx charges for this service, and that's only if your address is inside their Saturday delivery area. Sometime it's not even available.

And speaking of FedEx Air parcels with Saturday delivery, there is a pricing anomaly that appears sometimes. A Thursday shipment going out 2nd day with Saturday delivery added can sometimes be more expensive than a regular Next day air shipment that would be delivered a day sooner anyway. We run into that from time to time, and when we do - if Overnight is cheaper - we toss out the Saturday option and just ship the order for next day delivery.

Just a little info to help you guys understand our FedEx air shipping service.

Have a great evening!

Bob (aka Robert)

Note 1: I want to mention that our FedEx International service is a little different, but those orders typically ship next business day and get delivered where ever you are in the world within 48 hours. In my opinion that service level is worth the extra cost no matter how you cut it. Those parcels get handled with kid gloves too.

Note 2: Just for fun, we're planning to offer a same day delivery service through FedEx later this year, so an order placed at 10am here on the East Coast could be delivered by 3-4pm the same day on the West Coast 3,000 miles away. It will be REALLY expensive, but we think it will fill a niche among the 'gotta have it RIGHT NOW' crowd. :-)